Major Additions - Product Review Forums ? Research, Review & Compare Items

Version 1.4.0 has been released to remove the giftery / list it integration of the addon now that service has been discontinued. No upgrade is needed though there have been a few other bug changes since 1.3.5.

Finding Feedback Can be Like a Needle in a Haystack

The more your forum grows, the more of a challenge it becomes to sort through the history and get the full story.

Product Review Forums Brings Structure to the Chaos

As a full-featured product management addon, PRF sits on top of your forum allowing you to create defined products which, unlike individual posts, stay relevant over time. Each comment, review and even product updates filter back into this one spot allowing for a quick and comprehensive overview while the individual discussions rage on as always.

Here's just a few of the many features you'll find in PRF:

• Bring structure to products with established pages & reviews
• Reduce the number of repetitive posts from members looking up the same info
• Increase your traffic with content-rich, seo friendly, product listings
• Drive revenue by adding your own affiliate links to product listings
• Increase the activity stream's value with review integration
  
• Engage visitors with integrated wishlists from Giftery.me

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Installation is not upload & go... individualized settings are required. Read the install file.

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QUICK TIPS:
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Enabling Product Forums: To show product details and ratings, each product-forum must be enabled in the forum manager.

Adding Products: You may upload products one at a time through the admin [includes an image uploader using GD] or you can bulk import through XML. You can also enable users to add moderated products through a global and usergroup option.

Product Review Index: To access your forum's product overview go to www.yoursite.com/productforums.php - You may want to add a link to this to your navbar or as a tab.

Customization: This addon is made to be customized. To change the color schema see clientscript/vbulletin_css or dive right on in to the templates and phrases.

Powered by Giftery.me: This mod is maintained includes two integrations you should know about. Both can be controlled through the mod options.

[GCC LLC]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Awesome...

Now to find out how long is too long...

It's a vb setting (for thread title length) so probably wouldnt be hard to find the variable for it from vb and then either truncate or replace the post title if it exceeds that? For us we don't care so much about the post title so we made it just the rating.

[GCC LLC]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Dude, rock on. For some reason those were hardset the other way.... and yet not breaking things for most forums?

Did this fix the posts and threads?

I've seen stranger things with vbulletin...lol

[ashimashi]

Originally Posted by Ted S

People should back that up every time they install a mod, but they don't. People should read the install guide for a mod, but they don't. And this isn't about your files, it's your entire forum's data is.

While I totally want to see people grow their sites and make that easy [hence all the free mods], I'm certain that this passes the "risk to reward" threshold. Sorry!

If you want to take your forum beyond a certain point you really have to either learn some code or hire someone who knows it. There's great resources for both here @ vB.org too

What I will do is make a test forum just for this until I can get this working. So if anything does go wrong, it is only a test forum.

Thanks!

[1320Nation]

""Good or bad everyone wants to know what you think. Write a review and share your opinion of ********
Your review comments must be at least 1 characters long.""

This mod on my board is giving the above message for everyone that attempts to give a review for a product. Is there something I can check to stop this?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by 1320Nation

""Good or bad everyone wants to know what you think. Write a review and share your opinion of ********
Your review comments must be at least 1 characters long.""

This mod on my board is giving the above message for everyone that attempts to give a review for a product. Is there something I can check to stop this?

Try this version.

[deverill2010]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Try this version of upload/productforums.php

It will still put things into moderation I suspect [although i'm not sure why] but I'm wondering if you'll be able to properly approve them afterwords...

That didn't work ted, still cant approve them in the front end VB moderation.

[deverill2010]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Mixing normal threads with review threads is just fine. Changing the forumdisplay however changes it for the entire forum... You can tweak the prodforums_threadbit template to adjust however you like.

The code you're looking at is:

<vb:if condition="!$show['notificationtype']">                    
        <ul class="threadstats td alt" title="<vb:if condition="$thread['dot_count'] > 0">{vb:rawphrase have_x_posts_in_thread_last_y, {vb:raw thread.dot_count}, {vb:raw thread.dot_lastpost}}</vb:if>">
        <li>{vb:rawphrase prodforums_rating,{vb:raw thread.pf_rating}}</li>
        <li>{vb:rawphrase prodforums_reviews,{vb:raw thread.pf_reviews}}</li>
        <li class="hidden">{vb:rawphrase rating}{vb:raw thread.rating} / 5</li>
        </ul>
</vb:if>

Ok thats brilliant, I have managed to change it back to normal which looks ace with your help and a user previously who posted a conditon.

One last question then I am finally done! How can I get the 'thread' icon to look like normal if not a review?


Oh and I've noticed when on the activity stream if I click on the title of a product, it redirects me to a "No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator" error. The URL at that point is - http://www.midwiferyonline.co.uk/showthread.php?t=[ARG:4

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by deverill2010

That didn't work ted, still cant approve them in the front end VB moderation.

Try this version as influenced by the oh so helpful GCC LLC

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by deverill2010

Ok thats brilliant, I have managed to change it back to normal which looks ace with your help and a user previously who posted a conditon.

One last question then I am finally done! How can I get the 'thread' icon to look like normal if not a review?


Oh and I've noticed when on the activity stream if I click on the title of a product, it redirects me to a "No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator" error. The URL at that point is - http://www.midwiferyonline.co.uk/showthread.php?t=[ARG:4

If you don't want the icons and threads why not just remove the hack to forumdisplay.php all together?

The icon is controlled a little higher up in the same template.

[deverill2010]

Because I want them to show for the products just not the normal threads, within the forum.

Or have I completely missed something?

Thanks I'll try that other file tomorrow as on iPad now.

Any idea regarding the product titles in the activity stream?